‘Bullying in classroom kills a child’s potential’

Our children can never fully realise their potential until we have bully-free classrooms because sadly it is just not peers who are involved in the act but also teachers who actively promote “name-calling”, a speaker said at a seminar on Saturday.

Addressing the seminar, organised at the National Museum to observe the International Stand Up to Day, Arif Ali Rajput, a representative of the provincial ombudsman, stressed on the need for beginning with children instead of ignoring them. Syed Pir Ali Shah, a former judge of the Sindh High Court and also the first ombudsman was also present on the occasion.

Unlike other speakers at the event who spoke at length on the issue of harassment against women, Rajput chose to highlight the effects of bullying on children and explained that it was called the Pink Shirt Day because it was observed to honour the child who was bullied for wearing such a shirt.

“We need to teach children that words can never be taken back hence they need to be careful in making fun of someone’s appearance or shortcomings,” he said.

Mona Tufail, another representative of the provincial ombudsman, said it was important to commemorate the day which was first celebrated in February 2008 owing to the rising suicide cases among young adults. However only a few speakers spoke about bullying and most of them addressed harassment against women, showing that many needed to differentiate bullying from sexual harassment.

A tableau showing a man harassing a woman on a street and bullying her later in the university was also
performed to raise awareness about the issue, except it
too only revolved around women.

Dr Bilquis Rehman, a professor, felt that laws protecting women should be given importance because they showed that men no longer had the right to harass women, be it at a workplace or on the streets.

Activist and former cabinet secretary Dr Masooma Hasan stressed on the need to create an environment which would help women in making progress because from forced marriages to prohibiting education, women had still a long way to go to be treated as equals.